


Do You Hear What I Hear

by msmaj



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, F/M, Tumblr Prompt, unexpected christmas visitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:00:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21827842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmaj/pseuds/msmaj
Summary: It's the night before Christmas and Betty is certain that there is most definitely a creature stirring.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 58
Collections: 6th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Home for the HoliDale





	Do You Hear What I Hear

“Do you see anything?” The flashlight shook in Betty's hands, biting cold working through her mittens as she tried to illuminate a path for Jughead.

“Do you?” Her husband questioned back from deeper inside the garage. 

She took a step in, the snow and wind blowing at her back. “If I had seen anything, Jug, I wouldn’t have torn you away from your last-minute wrapping.”

At that he stood, shined his flashlight at her and sighed. “I’m not saying you were hearing things, Betts, but...maybe you were hearing things. It’s not exactly a nice night.”

The snow had been falling steadily for a couple of hours, turning their very green Christmas Eve into what would undoubtedly be the white Christmas everyone had been dreaming of. “I was not hearing things, Jughead. I heard a very specific sound. It was crying!”

“Then why haven’t I heard anything? We’ve been out here for fifteen minutes and all I can hear is your teeth chattering,” he took a step toward a pile of haphazardly stacked boxes, carefully trying to weave his way through the maze in the dark.“Betty, it’s close to midnight,” Jughead took the first box down and set it aside. “It’s nearly blizzarding, and we still have to get everything ready for the morning. Five more minutes and I’m…”

Squeak. 

“Did you hear that!?” Betty moved closer to her husband.

“No, I didn’t, shockingly enough,” he muttered, heaving another box off the pile. An old plastic dollhouse sat between him and the wall; his boot caught on it as he tried to turn in the dark space. “Shit!” 

Jughead managed to keep his balance but had apparently stirred something in the darkness.

SQUEAK.

Betty’s light cut a swath in the dark before them, his boot now purposefully tapping at the dollhouse.

The squeaking amplified; not just in volume but also in frequency. 

“Jughead, if you try to tell me you still don’t hear anything I’m going…”

“No, Betty, I hear it. I can’t unhear it. I think that if I move—oh my god.”

Betty rushed over, flashlight bouncing in her outstretched hand. “What? What is it?”

“It’s a little...” Leaning over the dollhouse, after a little bit of a struggle, Jughead pulled up a very small, very loud puff of fur. “...kitty.” 

Betty had set her flashlight down on the snowblower before rushing over to her husband and taking the very tiny kitten from his hands. “It has no tail! Oh my gosh, Jug, we need to go get milk and bottles and—”

“Whoa, whoa, it’s Christmas Eve, Elizabeth,” he said, retrieving their flashlights and walking back to the door. 

“Fine, Forsythe, you take it and I’ll go,” the too-young-to-be-alone kitten is held out in front of her, nearly lost in Betty’s hands. It was blizzarding now with at least six inches covering the driveway and sidewalks. The one store that was sure to be open was a good thirty minutes away on a good night, but Betty knew that if she continued to look at him in just that way he’d cave. Jughead craned his neck back, gloved hands pulling his well-worn beanie back over his head.

He sighed. “Go start a fire, get it warm or find something for it to sleep in. I’ll take care of everything else IF you finish my wrapping for me.”

“Deal!” Betty lunged forward, cradling the small creature to her chest as she kissed her husband in thanks. Unzipping her jacket, Betty stuffed the kitten inside and ran off to the house, her less than enthusiastic husband following behind her. 

“I’m gonna start the car, maybe shovel a little bit, you’re not listening to me at all so I’m just gonna go and hope to God I make it back before daybreak.”

Betty waved him off, too busy trying to figure out where to put their newest little friend for the night. The door closed in the distance, taking a resigned Jughead with it when she spied the tote full of presents by the tree. Of course, not one of them was wrapped. She nodded to herself in acceptance, she could make short work of that and have a place for the kitten to sleep. The kitten, however, had different plans. 

“Fire, right,” she mumbled to herself, setting the kitten down in an attempt to set up the wood. The small, terrified cat began to cry as soon as her paws hit the hardwood, crawling back up Betty’s still-booted foot before she could get any logs laid. “Okay, okay, I’m not going anywhere.” Betty picked up the whining fluff ball and realized it could do with a good cleaning, it’s bright blue eyes searching the room for something familiar and only finding Betty. 

Softly she smiled as she kicked her boots off next to the fireplace. They made their way up the stairs, kitten firmly pressed to her chest so she could grab throw blankets and old towels from the linen closet. It was careful dance to not instigate the kitten into alerting the neighborhood of their presence. 

It was well after two but the fire was lit, the kitten was bathed and currently curled up in an old blanket in the tote and all the presents wrapped and arranged under the tree. Betty was starting to fill the stockings when the kitchen door blew open, bringing with it her snow-covered husband with multiple bags of supplies. 

“Jesus, Jug. You look like the abominable snowman!” Laughing, she steps into the room, garlands still lit in the windows and takes the bags.

He shakes off the snow, mostly on his still laughing wife, and drops his coat over the back of a kitchen chair. “Well, it’s a blizzard, Betty. I’d say a good foot of snow has fallen since I left.”

Grimacing as the bags transfer from him to her, Betty sets them down quickly before she grabbed Jughead’s slippers and threw them to him. “Wonder if we’ll be leaving the house then.”

“Hopefully not. Which is why I also grabbed extra food,” he dropped into the recliner, pulled the lever on the side and groaned.

Betty was getting the morning coffee ready when the crying started.

“Uh-oh. Someone knows the food’s here,” Jughead sing-songed from his reclined state. Betty just smiled, dealt with the groceries and checked out the directions on the kitten milk replacement. One of the many bags he walked in with also held some toys, a bed, and a collar with a bell that looked far too big for the hungry kitten in her living room. 

“Just like a Jones already,” Betty muttered to herself while readying the bottle. She grabbed the rest of the kitten’s gear and walked into the living room where the scene before her had her heart catching in her throat as she spied her husband with the tiny cat curled up on his chest. 

She pulled a blanket from the sofa and draped it over their two sleeping forms, Jughead’s gentle snoring provided the soundtrack as she finished the last of the stockings and ensured the fire was out. The bottle was sat next to him on the side table in case it woke, but, knowing her husband, they’d be out until first light.

“Mooooooomm, come on!” In his excitement, their five-year-old son Christopher practically pulled his mother down the stairs Christmas morning. He had been sitting on the edge of her bed for nearly an hour, prodding her to wake, but having gone to bed past two, Betty managed to convince him to wait for his sister.

It was just after six-thirty when the three descended, Jughead still asleep in the recliner by the tree, the kitten now nestled into the crook of his neck. 

“What’s on Daddy?” Adeline asked, peeking from behind her mother.

Betty placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulders and guided her and their son over to where the kitten had begun to rouse. “That is your very special Christmas present.”

As if on cue, the kitten began it’s wailing, so loudly that Jughead nearly flew out of his chair and into the tree. Unable to contain their excitement any more, the kids ran from their mother to the small grey puffball that cried out from their yawning father’s embrace. 

“What is it?” Christopher asked.

“It’s a kitten!” Adeline pushed in front and climbed up the chair to sit on the arm, pulling the cat off her dad and holding it up for her brother to see. 

Christopher looked at it confused. “Uh, where’s the rest of it?”

“It’s a baby, bud, we’re going to have to take real good care of it too because we’re it’s family now.” Jughead sat up in the chair and pulled his son up on the other arm. 

“Why’s it squeaking?” 

“And where is its tail?” 

“That squeaking is because it’s probably very, very hungry. Your daddy fell asleep before it could eat. Do you two want to help feed it?” Betty walked back into the living room, cup of coffee in hand that Jughead took from her gladly. She swapped the old formula for new and handed the bottle to her husband. “And we don’t know, sweetie. It doesn’t look like anything happened so maybe she was just born without one.”

Jughead fed the kitten who greedily slurped down her bottle as his kids watched enrapt. “We’ll find out when we take her to the vet?”

Eyebrow raised in question, Betty turned to her husband. “Her?”

“Just a hunch,” he shrugs as the bottle falls from the kitten’s mouth. It mewled loudly, pawing at Jughead’s practiced hand before the bottle found its way back to where it was most needed. 

“Do you guys want to open any presents?”

“Not right now, Mom,” Christopher said mesmerized. 

Addy waved her off and laid her head on her father’s shoulder. “Maybe later.”

Betty nodded, swooning at her husband before grabbing her phone and uploading a picture to InstaGlam. Her family was completely caught up in the kitten with the tree glowing behind them. Cinnamon and pine and snow in the air, Betty, though extremely tired, had never felt more blessed. The picture was pretty, but it would never do justice to what she was feeling at that moment. 

_Meow-y Christmas from the Joneses! Baby kitty is currently nameless, but the kids have just met it so I doubt it will be that way for long._

_Update: Kitty is named Meowth. Of course._

**Author's Note:**

> Incredible header by the incomparable theheavycrown. Sarah is best.
> 
> Based on the Tumblr Prompt: #29- A very special present has a fluffy, four-legged surprise inside requested by the lovely, reinhartdeyes. Hope you like it :)


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